With the weaker pound lifting multinationals’ shares, the FTSE 100 had closed 48 points higher at 7,260.

Brexit fatigue, and the prospect of another extension, kept traders subdued, says David Madden of CMC:

UK politics remains in limbo as there is speculation the UK’s exit from the EU will be pushed back to early 2020, and there is also chatter of a general election.

The possibility of a no-deal Brexit seems to have been greatly reduced, which is music to dealers’ ears. While there remains a lack of clarity in relation to Brexit, stock markets are likely to meander. Things haven’t gone exactly according to plan for Prime Minister Johnson, but the fact that he managed to strike a deal with the EU, and get support for it, suggests that things are heading in the right direct.

Over in Congress, Mark Zuckerberg is facing questions over Facebook’s Libra digital currency plan.

Follow it here:

At the risk of turning into Auditing Today, we’re happy to report that Sports Direct has appointed an auditor -- RSM UK Group.

This ends a long search for a firm willing to audit Mike Ashley’s retail chain. None of the Big Four could be tempted, after Grant Thornton declined to be reappointed this year.

Grant Thornton handed in its notice in August, shortly after Sports Direct shocked the City by revealing it faced a €674m (£624m) tax claim from Belgian tax authorities.

There had been speculation that the government might need to take control and appoint auditors itself.

Despite posting a sharp fall in profits, Boeing’s shares have jumped by 3% in early New York trading.

This takes them to the top of the Dow leaderboard.

Traders are relieved that Boeing still expects to get permission for 737 MAX planes to fly again by the end of the year.

Rachel Reeves MP just told Sky News that it’s very disappointing that none of Thomas Cook’s former managers have taken responsibility for its collapse.

She points to Manny Fontenla-Novoa’s failure to accept blame today, even though his successors said that the debt run up under his leadership “hamstrung the company” and drove up debt servicing costs.

The BEIS committee chair adds:

What struck the committee most of all is the lack of humility, and the lack of taking responsibility

With huge rewards should come huge humility, and that was lacking today.

Q: So should the law be changed to make bosses liable when businesses fail?

Reeves has three suggestions:

• Make it easier to claw back bonuses in the case of catastrophic company failure
• Look at the fit and proper test around company directors. She’s not convinced that the people who brought down a 178-year old business should now be on the board of other companies
• Reform audit profession, and the regulating of auditing, and stop firms doing audit and non-audit work for the same company

She’s also concerned that the special managers winding up Thomas Cook have earned £11m in fees, while suppliers are waiting for debts to be paid, and staff are waiting for back pay.

Here’s some reaction to Harriet Green’s comments about her exit from Thomas Cook, from Joanna Partridge of ITV News (but joining us soon :) )

Q: Looking back at your time at Thomas Cook, what do you regret and would have done differently?

Former CFO Bill Scott says The company should have moved online faster [as Harriet Green was arguing].

Former CEO Manny Fontenla-Novoa says the collapse is very sad. He joined Thomas Cook aged 17 and worked his way up.

“Of course” he regrets things, but he refuses to accept that his merger with rival tour operator MyTravel in 2007 was a blunder.

He says he “fundamentally disagrees with Harriet Green” about the direction of the travel industry; he believes high street travel agents still have a future.

Now to Green.... who says there are several things she should have done differently

• On the rate and pace of her business transformation: She should have imputed more to the board, and helped them understand the changes.
  
  
• More could have done more to cut the “very heavy” asset base. Planes are very expensive, so the business model could have been changed - maybe through tie-ups with other holiday firms.
  
  
• We implemented some Apple-style stores, where people would queue to use augmented reality to see their hotels. I should have pushed that even harder and faster, Green adds.

Back to Manny Fontenla-Novoa, and his pay package.

Q: You took a £5m bonus for the MyTravel merger - was that a huge incentive to do other deals.

Manny Fontenla-Novoa says that bonus was conditional on delivering synergies, not just doing the deal.

Q: But you earned £12.8m between 2008 and 2012, a time when net profits were almost wiped out. How is that justified?

Fontenla-Novoa agrees this is a large amount of money, although some were paid in shares not cash. Shareholders gave their approval (so they must have though they were deserved)

Q: Why did Thomas Cook fail?

Harriet Green says the entire industry changed to a digital environment, with less need to own assets, and where a huge group of potential clients take their entire vacation online and don’t visit a travel agent.

Thomas Cook, with its enormous bricks and mortar base, wasn’t able to keep up, despite her push for a digital strategy.

Peter Kyle presses Harriet Green about rumours on her departure in 2014:

Q: Were there personality clashes?

I had disagreements with the board about the pace and scale of change, Green says. But her rating from employees was 93% positive.

Q: There were reports about very high levels of personal spending and expenses?

Green says she was away from home, travelling, from Monday to Thursday each week, which incurred obvious costs.

But in the second year, she reduced those expenses. Plus, her financial package was entirely based on performance.

It’s on record, she adds, that she earned less than the male CEO who preceded her, and indeed the one (Peter Fankhauser) who followed her.

Labour MP Peter Kyle turns to the issue of how Thomas Cook was run by Manny Fontenla-Novoa and Harriet Green - and why the firm eventually failed.

Q: It looks like there was a series of new turnaround plans and operating models, a fresh approach every two years. Was this a company in constant change that never found its feet?

Fontenla-Novoa says the company had a strategy under his watch (2003-2011), including the merger with MyTravel which was applauded by the financial markets and analysts.

But Harriet Green (2012-14) paints a less attractive picture, saying Thomas Cook faced a ‘wall of debt’ and three profits warning when she arrived in 2012. She did three key things:

1. Refinance and reduce that debt.
2. Build a digital business. Thomas Cook’s 1,000 stores didn’t have a connection to enterprise-level internet when Green arrived, so she tried to realign the company to target “an entire generation who had never been to a store” to buy a holiday
3. Make it much more efficient. Centralised procurement was brought in, to end the situation where Thomas Cook was competing with itself to, for instance, buy hotel capacity.

Q: So the business you build just didn’t have time to breath and succeed?

Green agrees that she wasn’t able to complete the plan, which could have taken six years. She insists she was managing to attract younger customers and grow the business..

Q: How did you feel when your plan started to be unpicked?

Incredibly frustrated and sad, Green replies. We were getting results.

Q: Is that the reason you left?

There’s a long pause, before Green explains that in November 2014 Thomas Cook’s chairman told her that they wanted a “traditional travel person” to take the transformation strategy forward.

Q: We heard yesterday that your auditors warned that there was “potential for manipulation” in your goodwill reporting....

Bill Scott says he wouldn’t use that term himself, but it recognises the the fact that different people can approach this issue in different ways.

Q: But is auditing simply a cosy club?

Bill Scott says there was “a lot of challenge” from auditors about Thomas Cook’s use of goodwill.

But the MPs clearly have concerns that Thomas Cook was allowed to overstate the value of its intangible assets, at levels not justified by its actual performance.

Q: Are the accounting standards around goodwill fit for purpose?

Harriet Green, who succeeded Manny Fontenla-Novoa in 2012, says there was “quite intense” discussion at Thomas Cook about how to address risk, and whether there should be a different approach.

Clearly, seeing what has happened, there should have been, Green adds.

[That will fuel concerns that goodwill wasn’t treated correctly at Thomas Cook, making its financial position look stronger than it proved to be].

Q: Were you using your suppliers as a bank, by paying them late and not declaring those liabilities on your balance sheet?

Fontenla-Novoa says the firm’s net debt figure takes this into account.

Q: But you were making suppliers wait 60 to 90 days....

Fontenla-Novoa says Thomas Cook kept to industry standards

Q: You also merged with Co-op Travel in 2010, what impact did that have?

Fontenla-Novoa says it was a non-cash deal, which improved profitability. The Co-op was strong in early-season, full-price sales of package holidays.

Q: But it did hike your debt levels?

Fontenla-Novoa denies it, and is arguing that his strategy of buying high-street travel agents was paying off.

Q: But weren’t there concerns about this exposure to the high street?

Banging the table forcibly, Fontenla-Novoa insists that high street travel agents have a future despite competition from the internet.

Look, he points out, Hays Travel have just bought Thomas Cook’s high street shops.... (for just £6m, we just learned).

Committee Rachel Reeves swings into action, pointing out that Hays isn’t lumbering under a huge debt pile.

Q: Wasn’t that Thomas Cook’s problem -- the borrowing built up on Fontenla-Novoa’s watch? Your successor-but-one, Peter Fankhauser, said he couldn’t explore new opportunities because of it.

Fontenla-Novoa is adamant that there is growth potential in high street travel agencies.

Q: Did Thomas Cook’s problems all stem from the takeover of MyTravel in 2007, and the debt you took on to finance the deal?

Manny Fontenla-Novoa defends his big deal, saying it gave Thomas Cook thre

1. 1) a huge presence in the Northern European market (including the biggest business in Scandinavia)
2. 2) A business in Canada, which meant it could use its planes in the winter
3. 3) Consolidated the UK business

It created a company with £9bn revenue, with 30,000 staff, 20 million passengers and a profit of £350m.

But what about the debt?

We thought the debt was manageable, and gave a “great platform” for growth, Fontenla-Novoa insisted.

But then the financial crisis struck in 2008, which affected relations with banks and bondholders. Plus, there was disruption from the Icelandic volcanic ash cloud, which hurt business.

But your borrowing costs rose from £100m per year in 2011, to £160m per year in 2012-15.... that’s a sharp rise, the committee points out. Did you leave the company with too much debt?

Fontenla-Novoa says Thomas Cook didn’t restructure its debt for many years after he left, so clearly the board still believed in the plan.

Rachel Reeves MP says there is an urgent need to reform the oversight of the audit industry, following the collapse of Thomas Cook and other problems at firms such as Carillion.

Antoinette Sandbach MP says the FRC should have heard “alarm bells” ringing, when Thomas Cook left so much goodwill on its books every year (as an intangible asset) - regardless of trading conditions, currency moves.

Surely if Thomas Cook was seeking fresh finance, its goodwill couldn’t be as valuable as it claimed?

Sandbach makes a crucial point -- was Thomas Cook’s goodwill the only thing that prevented it being insolvent?

David Rule, executive director of Supervision at the Financial Reporting Council, replies that it’s not their job to regulate the financial health of companies (it’s to ensure that auditing standards are being obeyed).

The Insolvency Service says it won’t examine whether the government acted appropriately over Thomas Cook, and whether it should have rescued the firm rather than letting it fail.

Some early reaction to the Thomas Cook hearing:

MPs are also raising concerns that Thomas Cook Airlines shouldn’t have been put into liquidation, as it was actually still profitable.

Dean Beale says “The court was satisfied that that entity was insolvent under the legislation.”

The Office for National Statistics has reported that people in Northern Ireland have become more anxious, ending a long run of improvement.

Northern Ireland had previously reported lower levels of anxiety than the rest of the UK, but in the 12 months to March it fell back to the UK average.

That period, of course, covered the run-up to the original Brexit date.

John Hardy, head of foreign exchange strategy at Saxo Bank, fears that another Brexit delay will hurt business investment - which would be bad for the pound.

He writes:

The vote in favour of Boris Johnson’s deal with a reasonable 329-299 majority, given that the Northern Irish DUP government coalition partner of voted against. But the 322-308 vote against the compressed timetable to get Brexit delivered before the October 31 deadline means at least another few weeks of political fighting over amending details of the Brexit deal and possibly a UK general election.

It seems clear that Brexit will happen, but the further delay could inflict additional damage on an already struggling UK economy if investment decisions are held back. Sterling got no boost from the first vote and saw a fairly orderly consolidation on the second vote.

Heineken, the world’s second-largest brewer, has also underwhelmed this morning.

The company says operating profits this year will only hit the lower point of its previous guidance. Sales in the Americas have fallen in the last quarter, balanced by strong double-digit growth in Asia Pacific.

Overall, Heineken’s organic business grew by 7.4%, but CEO Jean-François van Boxmeer cautioned:

We are seeing increased volatility across a number of our markets, which we assume to continue for the rest of the year.

Shares in Heineken are down 2%.

Here’s those falling chip stocks:

The Stoxx 600 index, which tracks a swathe of European companies, has dropped by almost 0.5% this morning, to 392.9 points.

Economics blogger Jeroen Blokland points out that the Stoxx 600 has struggled to get through these nervous 390s in the past:

The weaker pound is propping up the FTSE 100 this morning, but shares in some UK-focused companies are dropping.

Housebuilders Persimmon and Berkeley Group are both down 1.2%, on fears that another Brexit delay will deter people from moving house. Anxiety about consumer spending has also pushed Autotrader, the classified car adverts firm, down 1.8%.

The FTSE 250 index of medium-sized companies, more focused on the UK, has dropped by 0.3%.

Mark Haefele, chief investment officer at UBS Global Wealth Management, hasn’t lost faith in the pound -- pointing out that a disorderly Brexit still looks unlikely.

“The likelihood of a Brexit deal has risen, but crucially the outcome that investors feared the most, a no-deal Brexit that could have pulled the pound down to $1.12, seems less likely now than at any time in the last few months.

We retain our overweight position in sterling versus the US dollar in our FX strategy. If, as now seems likely, we move in the direction of a general election, we expect GBPUSD to settle in a 1.26–1.32 range. If the Brexit deal eventually passes, we would expect GBPUSD to rally to 1.35.”

The French, German, Italian and Spanish stock markets have all opened lower, as investors face up to another Brexit delay.

Tech stocks are among the big fallers, hurt by Texas Instrument’s disappointing sales forecast last night.

TI’s chips are used in a wide range of electronic devices, so is a good indicator of how the technology sector is faring.

The Financial Times says:

The Dallas-based group was one of the first chipmakers to warn last year of softer demand in the sector, amid weaker economic growth globally and US-China trade tensions....

Texas Instruments’ outlook for revenue in the fourth quarter, at $3.07bn to $3.33bn, was softer than the $3.59bn analysts expected. Revenue from the third quarter also fell shy of estimates.

The last 14 hours have been quite volatile for the pound, as traders around the globe watched the events in parliament.

It scampered towards $1.30 as MPs voted in favour, in principle, of Johnson’s Brexit deal (a Second Reading, in Westminster jargon).

But then it took a dive once MPs refused the PM’s plan to get the deal through the Commons in three days.

But at $1.286, the pound is still about 5% higher than earlier this month.